We went to have lunch in the dining room with all of Grandma’s friends and relatives. She introduced me to them all. Some of them grabbed on to me. Some of them just hung their heads and didn’t talk or look at anything. There were bald ladies. Grandma talked to them. She touched their heads and their arms. She spoke to them in their secret language. She kept telling people who she was and then one second later she’d have to tell them again. She kissed them. One of them asked her if she’d heard from Willit Braun lately and then they laughed and laughed. A woman said she just wanted to die already to get away from Willit Braun because she knew she wouldn’t meet him in heaven, that’s for sure! Even tiny, shrunken, senile people from California with escaping on their minds remembered the awful reign of Willit Braun. They sang a lot. An awful lot. Then we ate lunch with them. It was like a nightmare. One woman screamed for help over and over. Help me! Help me! Help me! A man with a hole in his throat that he talked out of asked me if the two of us were getting married! People tried taking off their clothes. Some just sat there and looked dead. Some of them had dolls in their laps. But they all loved it when Grandma sang the old songs with them. I could see she was getting so tired.
It was nap time finally for everyone in the home and we had to go. I thought some of Grandma’s friends might not wake up from their naps. The nurses were rounding them up. They were wheeling giant carts of diapers around. The diapers were stacked like books on a bookshelf. One guy had ten stolen yogurts under his shirt and the nurse asked if she could have them back. He tried to fight her. The nurse gave up. Then disaster really struck! Grandma was doing this little dance for two old guys who were her double cousins, which means their moms were sisters and their dads were brothers. Grandma said this is the thing that happens in those towns, no problem. The two old guys asked her to do that little dance she did on the porch when she was a kid together with her older sister Irene, who became Lou and Ken’s mom. Grandma’s old double cousins sang Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile! They banged on the plastic arms of their wheelchairs and slid their slippers around on the floor and clapped. Grandma was really entertaining them. They must have really thought they were all kids back on that porch in their old town in the summertime. Grandma twirled around and I could tell she was sort of losing her balance and reaching out to the diaper cart to hold on to, but she missed. I ran over to where she was dancing and then she did a kick that was too high, and then believe it or not Grandma fell down.
Grandma! I ran over to her and kneeled down by her head. There was blood on her face. Nurses came running and lifted Grandma up with the kind of giant sling they use to transfer the whales at SeaWorld and put her on a bed in an empty room where somebody had died two minutes earlier. The dead person’s family was still taking out his clothes and slippers from the closet. Grandma looked really confused for a minute but then she started laughing again and saying how she’d be on the DL now. The nurse was saying that her arm looked broken and bruises were forming all over her body. And one of her front teeth was gone. The nurse said if I scrambled around on the floor in the hallway I might find it, but Grandma said oh, for Pete’s sake, who needs it? Do you expect the tooth fairy to visit me in the night? She was lisping because of the tooth not being there. That made her laugh harder and then I laughed too and so did the nurses! I didn’t want to ask Grandma why she kicked so high during that stupid dance. I didn’t want to be mad at her. I tried to think of what Grandma would say instead. What’s done is done! Have I learned something? Fun and games! I thought of other things to say. I stood beside her and frowned at her. Grandma started talking to the family of the person who had just died in that room. She knew who they were. They came over to the bed and prayed with her. But you could tell Grandma was in a hurry to get out of there. She said stuff in their secret language like gownz yenuch fohrdich metten zigh, which meant they’d prayed enough, God’s not dumb, let’s get moving.
Grandma started to get up so we could leave but the nurse asked her to lie back down. She wanted Grandma to lie down for one or two hours before we left but Grandma said she didn’t have the time for that. The nurses told Grandma she was probably in shock. Grandma told them she thought they might be more shocked than she was. Thank you, Grandma said, but we really have to go. I was carrying Grandma’s red purse. Grandma couldn’t stop laughing because of the way she sounded, talking without her tooth. I asked Grandma if I should make a splint for her arm. Out of what? said Grandma. She looked around. Let’s just skedaddle, Swiv! But it’s broken! I said Jesus Christ under my breath like Mel Gibson and remembered Mom. I told Grandma if she didn’t let me make a splint I’d tell Mom she was driving Ken’s convertible. Grandma pretended to be terrified. She put her unbroken hand on her face and made her mouth stretch open like the painting of that guy on the bridge with the bomb behind him. I mean it! I said. Also, I’ll tell her that you were dancing and drinking non-stop on the boat. Grandma said she wasn’t drinking non-thtop. She started to shake from laughing. Okay, I’m leaving, I said. This is your new house. You’re staying here forever and wearing diapers. Okay, okay, okay, said Grandma. Thwiv, she said. But then she was laughing again! Finally Grandma stopped laughing long enough to ask the nurse if there was a sling she could use, and the nurse went out to find one. When she came back the nurse said she was sorry but she might have to charge Grandma for the sling. She’d try really hard not to. She showed me and Grandma how to put it on over her head and where the Velcro goes and how tight it should be and then Grandma got out of the dead person’s bed and we left. On the way out Grandma said goodbye to a thousand people she knew who still hadn’t gone for their naps. They were waiting in the hallway. They pointed at her sling and her mouth and she said I know! Isn’t it ridiculous! Live and learn! Schpose mitten sigh! Everybody replied, Schpose mitten sigh! They smiled and laughed. Grandma kissed them all again. I made peace signs in lieu of kissing because it was California and also I didn’t want them to grab me anymore. I tried to make them not grab Grandma’s broken arm when she leaned over to kiss them. Old people love to grab anybody they can get their hands on.